Way to many Destroyers/Cruisers, like an insane amount...

[LizardLikeWizard]

Since the update there are tons of patrols guarding nothing. Packs of 5-10 Cruisers and Destroyers swarming areas closer to England or in the middle of nowhere. Trying to find a freighter or tanker is like trying to find a needle in a deadly haystack filled with razor-blades.

[Along_22b2]

i love it,

[boris.glevrk]

I agree. 6 military ships escorting one merchant is stupid.

[Dewgle]

Originally posted by boris.glevrk:

I agree. 6 military ships escorting one merchant is stupid.

That sounds like a warship patrol with a support vessel to keep them supplied with ammunition and/or fuel which is realistic and really cool. What you're describing is something that Link would do deliberately inside his Uboat Expanded mod.

[LizardLikeWizard]

Originally posted by McDewgle:

Originally posted by boris.glevrk:

I agree. 6 military ships escorting one merchant is stupid.

That sounds like a warship patrol with a support vessel to keep them supplied with ammunition and/or fuel which is realistic and really cool. What you're describing is something that Link would do deliberately inside his Uboat Expanded mod.

I played uboat expanded, like I stated there are patrol escorting nothing and like 5 or 6 packs of 5-10 destroyers aint fun to me.

[Dewgle]

Originally posted by LizardLikeWizard:

I played uboat expanded, like I stated there are patrol escorting nothing and like 5 or 6 packs of 5-10 destroyers aint fun to me.

Working as intended, those are ASW hunting parties and/or coastal patrols. They're not designed to be fun, they're designed to give you a very bad day lol.

But it depends on where you're hunting, of course. If you're grabbing up patrol missions for the North Sea, you are guaranteed to run into more warship patrols than merchant convoys. Likewise the areas around the Western Approaches, the English Channel and the Celtic Sea are also heavily patrolled by warship groups. Why? Because that's where u-boats like to hunt.

Take away the mystery, pull back the curtain and have a look for yourself.
Type "Detect 1000" into the console, grab a cup o' tea or coffee, sit back and just observe for a while as the map is covered in convoys, aircraft and warship patrols. Take this time to study the map and the patrols to see where warship patrols frequent, and where they are absent. Take this time to study convoy routes and the grids you feel are best to attack them in while putting yourself in the least amount of danger.

Once you feel like you've studied these routes adequately enough and you have your notes beside you, then make an effort to only accept patrol missions that favor these good hunting areas. That's how I did it.

[Lil' Lily]

If its "working as intended", its ahistorical BS.

The Royal Navy had 184 destroyers total in September 1939, and only about 100 were "modern", with the rest being ageing destroyers from WW1. In addition, only 65 out of that 184 were stationed in home waters in 1939, with 17 of those stationed at Scapa Flow.

(Hell, in 1940 the UK sold land rights to their naval bases in the Caribbean and Canada in exchange for 50 old US destroyers, (known as the Destroyers-for-bases deal) because they were that lacking in destroyers).

In 1939, the Royal Navy had 184 destroyers, which managed to destroy 22 uboats in 1940.
4 years later, the Royal Navy had 277 destroyers, which destroyed 248 uboats in 1944.

It wasn't the increase of destroyer numbers that resulted in more uboat sinkage - the destroyers got more efficient at finding uboats. The invention of the centimetric radar, for example, led to massive uboat losses because it meant a destroyer could instantly detect a periscope poking above the water, making lone destroyers deadly for uboats.

The UK couldn't afford to have 10 destroyers to every convoy in the early years of the war, and by the end of the war they didn't need to. Meaning they never had the numbers of destroyers guarding individual convoys that UBOAT portrays.

In UBOAT, I start a campaign and one month into it, all convoys i meet have 5 destroyers, and there's entire convoys made up of 10 destroyers?

Like, literally as i type this, its 1939 in game, and there's 12 destroyers (18% of the entire number of destroyers the Royal navy actually had stationed in Home Waters) circling my submerged sub. Maybe you find it "realistic and really cool". I don't. If it had really been like this, the "uboat menace" would have been called the "uboat slight inconvenience".

[Vlad Tepes]

I agree with SFE this seems really unrealistic. I get it, the game should be challenging, but in the early years... I don't know... it seems very tough.

[Dewgle]

Originally posted by SFE:

If its "working as intended", its ahistorical BS.

The Royal Navy had 184 destroyers total in September 1939, and only about 100 were "modern", with the rest being ageing destroyers from WW1. In addition, only 65 out of that 184 were stationed in home waters in 1939, with 17 of those stationed at Scapa Flow.

(Hell, in 1940 the UK sold land rights to their naval bases in the Caribbean and Canada in exchange for 50 old US destroyers, (known as the Destroyers-for-bases deal) because they were that lacking in destroyers).

In 1939, the Royal Navy had 184 destroyers, which managed to destroy 22 uboats in 1940.
4 years later, the Royal Navy had 277 destroyers, which destroyed 248 uboats in 1944.

It wasn't the increase of destroyer numbers that resulted in more uboat sinkage - the destroyers got more efficient at finding uboats. The invention of the centimetric radar, for example, led to massive uboat losses because it meant a destroyer could instantly detect a periscope poking above the water, making lone destroyers deadly for uboats.

The UK couldn't afford to have 10 destroyers to every convoy in the early years of the war, and by the end of the war they didn't need to. Meaning they never had the numbers of destroyers guarding individual convoys that UBOAT portrays.

In UBOAT, I start a campaign and one month into it, all convoys i meet have 5 destroyers, and there's entire convoys made up of 10 destroyers?

Like, literally as i type this, its 1939 in game, and there's 12 destroyers (18% of the entire number of destroyers the Royal navy actually had stationed in Home Waters) circling my submerged sub. Maybe you find it "realistic and really cool". I don't. If it had really been like this, the "uboat menace" would have been called the "uboat slight inconvenience".

Destroyers weren't the only ones patrolling English waters or protecting convoys, please don't forget that corvettes and patrol boats exist too, lol. Then there was the Canadian corvette and destroyer assistance and the American lend-lease program but I digress, we're getting off topic.

Keep in mind this discussion was originally about the English Channel and it's the English channel I'd like to attempt and divert your attention back towards with this amazing graphic created by Link, author of the Uboat Expanded mod.
https://youtu.be/s7ziYxOSBsQ

The red lines you see darting around the ocean are every single u-boat patrol from 1939 to 1945 and the very first thing you immediately notice is that each and every single u-boat traveled north, over the top of the British isles and down the Western Approaches to reach their designated patrol zone. Not a single one passed through the English Channel.

[link]

It's almost like a mod (doesn't work atm) was developed to balance and make the game historically accurate with convoys by using the actual convoy rosters found on convoy web.

Alrighty, now, yes you are right there weren't as many destroyers as we see in vanilla early on. But there was still a vast number of combat capable vessels patrolling all around the British isles.

I will try and work out a chart of number of escorts per convoy soon to give an better representation of the diversity in convoys groups...

[Dewgle]

Link! Speak of the devil and he shall appear!

[link]

Average # of Escorts & Merchants per convoy over time
https://imgur.com/a/sLBVZDq

Just know this is a huge number of conovys. (about 25,000 convoy groups)
also 1 ship could appear numerous times in multiple convoys for a given month.

[schnupfi]

frok wikipedia: "he Americans favored aggressive hunter-killer tactics using escort carriers on search and destroy patrols, whereas the British preferred to use their escort carriers to defend the convoys directly. The American view was that defending convoys did little to reduce or contain U-boat numbers, while the British were constrained by having to fight the battle of the Atlantic alone for the early part of the war with very limited resources. There were no spare escorts for extensive hunts, and it was only important to neutralize the U-boats which were found in the vicinity of convoys. The survival of convoys was critical, and if a hunt missed its target a convoy of strategic importance could be lost. The British also reasoned that since submarines sought convoys, convoys would be a good place to find submarines."

[schnupfi]

so 1939 british hunter groups seems unrealisitc, with entry of USA this might be different

[LizardLikeWizard]

I really just want a more balanced approach especially early on. Finding a convoy of 20+ ships and 3 being merchant the rest were no lie all cruiser/destroyers. I will start taking some screens to really show how out of whack it is.

[urseus]

Stop pressuring Link to fix UBE everyone. He's really humble and won't like all the praise and cheers he will get when it's done.

Praise and cheers for like, years. Endless praise really. Just stop it.